Tim Blair

The smaller figure (50+) refers to soldiers killed directly as a result of enemy action. The larger (120-odd from memory) indicates total Coalition losses since May 1, including those from road accidents, suicide, pneumonia, accidental discharge of weapon, etc. ad nauseam. Strangely, one of these figures is around twice as big as the other one, and it's clear from the WaPo's phrasing ("insurgents have killed") that it's the first that's being cited. Now are we poorly informed or just playing hermeneutics here? I suspect the latter.

Not being sarcastic or anything here, but I'm just curious... what's the average fatality rate of the US military during peacetime? And why do I have a feeling that it's MORE than "one a day?"

Is it possible that, on average, the US military is SAFER right now than it would be at peace?

I don't even know where to start googling with this one...

Flash! Lamestream media still has head up ass! News at 11!

Hey, Wonderduck ... I suspect your figure would be for the US armed forces as a whole. If one per day of these died, that would put the death rate for the approximately one tenth of the total US forces who are in Iraq at *0.1* per day. OK?

And, as you can see, this is not the case.

Heyy Buddy Epsen, can you post the HTML for hyperlinking in the comments? Me dumb, but me want to link so you show Amos please

The magic formula is ...
title
So, the bit between the quotes (" ") is where you paste your URL (keep the quotes on the outside!), and what you type where >title

Is that clear? If not, will try to explain further.

AARGH!
It read all the tags like it was supposed to! Sorry! Gibberish results!

I'll try again ...
first open the tag, like so
then after the bracket, write a href = (include the a)
then open quotes (") and paste your URL between them (and close quotes)
then we want >
write your linked text in here
and finish with

Still no joy .. after "like so", we want the "is less than" sign -- the one that points towards the left. Sorry, I'd post it, but the page thinks I'm opening an HTML tag if I post this character.

I'm trying to be helpful, but I think I'm just digging a bigger pit.

And, right at the end, we need "is less than"a"is greater than".

I love youse all.

Buddy,

Keep that up and we'll have to find a new on-site "I'm special" anal retentive pedant.

Excuse me for replying to a direct request to explain something, however badly it worked out. I think there's something in that for all of us.

We've had 250 murders in Dallas (and I don't mean Scotland) this year...mostly with firearms.

When I was stupid enough to jump out of airplanes for the United States Army we had more injuries from automobile accidents than jumping.

Our problem isn't a few GIs getting knocked off every day or so; our problem is replacement and morale. These are mercenaries.

We should be showing loops of the Twin Towers beginning to end and make the NYTimes biographies of the dead required reading for everyone in the U.S. then seek volunteers.

That or shut up.

Sigh. I'll do it. Here's how to link (though, Amos, there are many websites that show you how to do simple html tags):

<a href="http://your.url.com/">link word or phrase</a>.

If it's to a file not a direct url:

<a href="http://your.url.com/pagename.html">link word or phrase</a>. (Notice, no forward slash after the "html.")

Due to popular demand I'll be adding this to the comments template.

Niiiiice.

Theodopoulos,

As of July 20, there were 137 murders in Dallas. Since I live in the area, I think I'd have heard if ~120 people had been murdered in the last 2-3 weeks. I suspect the stats regarding the guns may have been pulled from the same place -- with a distinct sucking sound.